Seizure

It seems hard to believe that it was only a week ago that we left Rockford to drive down to Cleveland but believe it or not the time does go by fairly quickly (other than when you're sitting up at 3:30am and realize that you still have at least 16 hours left before you can go to sleep).

Yesterday started off a bit rough for Tina. As I mentioned on my last post they had Tina on sleep deprivation and when it was all said and done she ended up staying awake from 7:00am on Thursday morning to 10:30pm on Friday night (about 39 hours with no sleep). At about 3:30pm on Friday the EEG tech told her that if she actually made it to 7:00pm (which was her original goal) she would hold the record for sleep deprivation. I think they tell you that they want you to stay up until 7:00pm the next day just as something to shoot for, fully expecting that you'll only make it to about 4:00am. Little do they know that when Tina is motivated to get something done there's little you can do to stop her, and let me tell you she was motivated to have a seizure. She figured that if sleep deprivation would cause a seizure then she would just stay awake until she had one. Finally, by 10:00pm when the Tiger game went into a rain delay, I was able to convince her that perhaps 40 hours with no sleep might be good enough and she should try to get some shut eye.

She slept for maybe 10 or 11 hours but when she woke up yesterday morning I think the disappointment finally hit her that she had stayed up for almost 40 yours with nothing to show for it. She was pretty discouraged at the thought that we were going to have to sit in the EMU for months. We were able to talk and pray about it and as the day went on she felt better and better (thanks to all of you who are praying for Tina - your prayers were certainly felt as we battled the discouragement of no seizures).

We spent the rest of the day watching the Tigers get trounced, again, by the Indians, played a rousing game of Skip-Bo (the Hovinghs would be proud), watching some cool cable shows we never get to see at home, and plenty of reading and Facebook.

At about 9:30 last night Tina decided to catch up on Facebook stuff while I watched a movie, when the nurse came in and asked Tina how she was doing, which we didn't think much of until she asked her to remember the color blue and asked her if she knew her name. Tina looked at her funny and rather than answering her asked, "why, am I having a seizure?" The nurse said that the EEG tech said she was showing some activity, but when Tina answered all her questions the nurse left and Tina went back to Facebook. 20 seconds later the nurse came back in and started asking more intense questions about who I was, wanted her to point at the window, and those kinds of things (pretty standard questions for when someone is having a seizure).

On a side note: does it make me a sick person that about a year ago when our last cat (Scarlet) was having a seizure in the basement and Tina came and got me wanting me to go down and help her, that I went down the stairs and said, "Kitty, remember the color green. Point at the window, Kitty. Do you know what day it is? Kitty, where are you?" I guess it's just how my sick mind works. Tina thought it was funny... I think.

Again Tina was able to answer all of the nurses questions just fine and didn't feel anything funny other than she felt like her eyes were being strained looking at the computer. The longer they asked her questions Tina finally said that if they kept asking questions she just might have a seizure and about that time she stopped and said that yes she now felt the seizure. Unfortunately the seizure didn't stop there. It continued on and eventually she ended up having a grand mal. In all the whole seizure lasted maybe 5 minutes or so and it sounds like they may have gotten some good information from the simple-partial seizure she had before she generalized (grand mal).

We are very thankful that Tina was able to have a seizure, which sounds weird, but we're still not sure yet if that seizure provided enough information for them to be able to feel confident with moving ahead with surgery on Wednesday. Ideally they want her to have several seizures before they move forward with surgery to be sure that all of her seizures are in fact coming from the same location in her brain. If they don't feel comfortable with what they have they will hold off on surgery until she has more seizures even if that means rescheduling her surgery to a later date.

For those of you who have never witnessed a grand mal seizure, after the seizing part ends the brain does a kind of "re-boot" and shuts down completely for a while. Tina was unconscious for about half an hour or so and eventually "woke" up and was wondering why I was standing there looking at her EEG monitor. I am so thankful that Tina has no memory of her seizures, no doubt that the actual seizures are far more traumatic for those who witness them than it is for those who actually have them. To Tina she remembers them coming in asking her all her questions, and then eventually feeling her deja-vu and her normal symptoms of her simple-partial seizures, then she just feels like she must have fallen asleep and then woke up from a nap with no other memory.

As for me, I hate watching grand mal seizures. Tina tries talking me into not watching, but there is no way that I can not watch. As much as I hate it I need to witness it so that I can accurately communicate what I see to the doctors. Even this morning they wanted to know if there was anything different with this seizure from her others - if I don't' watch them I can't pass on that information. I hate it, but I also know that this is one of those occasions when I need to strap on the armor, suck it up, and do what I need to do for my wife. As much as I would like to check out when she's thrashing around like she's demon possessed, I need to be there and stay there. I hope that doesn't sound too caviler but that's the way it is.

The second thing that I had to come to grips with as I sat in Tina's room after her seizure, when the nurses and EEG techs had left, and Tina was still unconscious, was that Tina had just had a seizure and the possibility of brain surgery had become that much more of a real possibility. I realized that although I had been praying for a seizure there was a certain part of me that was hopeful that if she didn't have any seizures then they wouldn't be able to do surgery - not anymore. This reminded me of what we call at our church a "theology of suffering."

In a nutshell a theology of suffering is the recognition that first of all we live in a broken world. Because of sin (mine included) this world no longer works. Pain, sickness, oppression, disease, and suffering are all a result of the sin that started with Adam back in the garden of Eden and is perpetuated each day by every one of us. However, the good news is that "where sin increased, grace increased all the more..." (Romans 5:20) So if sin (mine included) is the cause of so much suffering in the world, it is grace, God's grace, which redeems the lost and broken world that we live in even if for the moment we must remain in it.

So as I sat and watched my wife lay there unconscious from her seizure, faced with the real possibility of brain surgery I was reminded of the bigger picture that my King gave his life to redeem a world that do to it's sin makes suffering possible and that although sin and the effects of sin increase all around me, grace increases MORE.

I cannot tell you, in spite of the difficulty of the moment, how much hope there is in knowing that pain and suffering are not the final word on our existence here on earth. Earlier in chapter 5 of Romans Paul says:

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings,

because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not disappoint us,

because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit,

whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time,

when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man,

though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

-Romans 5:2b-8

How grateful I am that my King has died to give me hope that my suffering is not in vain, but that my suffering has a purpose and that purpose is to produce hope in me through the Holy Spirit. Hope that because Christ died for me and I've accepted his gift of salvation, one day, when he overthrows the present order of things and sin, and pain, and suffering no longer exist, I will be there to see it - what a glorious day that will be.

Tina is doing well this morning. She is much encouraged by her seizure last night and is her normal self. We are still waiting to hear the results of the data from her seizure last night and what that might mean for surgery on Wednesday. We'll keep you posted.